Myth #01: Trashy

No one envies the harpies.

They live at the bottom of society, and even that's an improvement; they were legally considered nuisance animals until just decades ago, a point of shame for some people and of nostalgia for others. The way the other races talk about them has plenty of unfortunate historical parallels:

"They steal." Sure, but it's not like they have many job opportunities. "They're rude." But there's a difference between rude and mean. "They smell like a zoo." Only if they don't bathe, and that's true of you too.

But all of it - both the centuries of hate and the eventual acceptance - boil down to resources.

As legend puts it, they were "cursed by the gods" with an "insatiable hunger." ...Except the world now generates enough food waste to satiate it a thousand times over. As scavengers who could digest anything organic, they were pests until they were free garbage disposals. It's an open secret the "biofuel plants" the government "spent millions on" were just dumps in their neighborhoods.

Modern life's been weird for them. Some have tried to move up in the world, with mixed results, but most don't see the point. Pay to live in an isolating society where they're asked to leave shops and called "fucking pigeons" at every turn? Or stay in the slums where they're left alone and there's free food?

Many have put on so much weight they've lost their ability to fly. Not like it matters: it requires expensive permits in urban areas, and in rural ones, might make them target practice. And there's no need to hunt when you're getting delivery.

"More productive citizens" are infuriated by their laziness (even vampires, the hypocrites), and they're tarred with every name you could imagine: Vultures, infesters, freeloaders, gutter birds, pigs on the wing, sky g-psies, and most often, trashy.

Your friend loves that word. She's thought about getting it on a t-shirt, but it's too much effort.

Thinking about it makes you smile, and takes your mind off the suffocating heat of the station platform. It's eleven on a summer Saturday night, and you're heading into the city.

This city could be anywhere. Its story's been repeated all over the world. Like any modern metropolis, it's built on a reputation of tolerance, as a place where all species live in harmony, but in reality there's the same caste system as everywhere else, just not written into law.

You live in the northern suburbs, so your train ride is a progression downward through class levels. Crossing the river into the city puts you right into downtown, the tracks flanked by the skyscrapers that serve as the city's face. You pass the middle class areas, then the up-and-coming ones, then the modest working class ones, before finally getting off at the southern outskirts, a giant refuse pile for the races no one wants around.

Goblins, oni, tieflings, trolls... First they packed the tenements of what was once a factory town outside city limits, then built shanties around them until it congealed into one mass of jerry-rigged construction.

You decide to walk the ten blocks from the station, as if to burn off what you haven't eaten yet. The streets are strewn with litter and home to packs of stray dogs. Orcs glare at you from doorways. Drow offer you substances you've never heard of. You don't blame them. Why else would a human come down here alone?

Some spend their lives trying to escape the South End, others embrace it. The ones who embrace it can thrive here, taking advantage of the dirt-cheap cost of living to spend their money on whatever they want. That's how your friend can afford not to give a fuck.

You met on the internet, on a site for people who are into this kind of thing. There were plenty of guys down for a midnight tryst, but you were one of the few who'd be seen with her the next day.

And it's going well. Your friendship with benefits is something like wholesome. Sometimes, if you're both in the same area, you'll stop into a cafe and get coffee like platonic friends. Other times you go to the movies or a concert. You get funny looks, but who cares? Others, she comes over yours and you watch TV or spend all day in bed like a real couple. Tonight is none of those times.

You turn down what's either a narrow side street or a wide alley, and knock on the door of a two-story rowhouse that's had another two illegally added. She bought it back when it was even cheaper, taking only a few rooms for herself and parting the rest out into separate apartments. Thriving is relative here, but at least it's enough to afford you privacy when you come over. And the real perk is that she only has to work when she wants to, which gives her plenty of time to lie around smoking weed and stuffing herself with past-date snacks.

She opens the door and you fall into each other's arms. No matter how often you see each other, your hugs last an inordinately long time. You can't help it. She's a big girl, and you're addicted to the feeling of sinking into her.

She has an aesthetic popular with harpies: A shock of teased black hair, winged eyeliner, and lipstick in a gaudy shade of red. Mismatched clothes picked from donation bins and dumpsters, cut up and modified with fasteners to go on around wings, their outdated logos either torn out or spray-painted over. Everything black, initially because it was easy to pair and good for burglary, but it'd come to be a fashion statement. Countless necklaces, bracelets, and trinkets made from nicked shiny things on chains pilfered from jewelry and hardware stores alike. It doesn't correspond to any human subculture, but "trailer park JRPG goth GF" could describe it.

She usually dresses in some variation of this, but not as revealing. Every time she greets you at the door, she seems to be wearing less. Her shirt is claw-torn halfway down to show off two modestly-sized but perfectly-formed breasts, but more notable is the huge, doughy belly spilling over her waistband. Usually, she just hints at it with a crop top revealing a few inches above the bellybutton; the shirt hasn't changed, but this time, she's wearing her skirt at her hips, exposing the full lower half. The skirt wouldn't fit any other way: it's already stretched close to the tearing point, and so short you'd be able to see up it if you bent over. And if her thighs weren't so fat they hide her panties even when she sits down, that is. They're ringed with feathers just above the knee, like the trim on a pair of boots, before transitioning to lower legs that are purely avian, although their thickness makes them more reminiscent of a dinosaur's.

She sees you blushing. Already with the bedroom eyes.

She takes a drag off a cigarette, stubs it out on her tongue, and swallows it. You both move in at once for a kiss. Her mouth tastes like smoke and decay, a taste you instinctually react to as "wrong," but has a strange sweetness once you get past it, like biting into a bad apple.

"Ya ge' here awright?" she says in an accent she usually hides. Speaking Southender in polite company is social suicide, a shame since it's such an interesting dialect. It's impossible to place a national origin to - a mulligan stew of slangs - breathy, and slurred as if the speaker's trying to move their mouth as little as possible. It fits her perfectly.

"I look 'awright,' don't I?" you tease.

"Wha'evah, prick." She grins and rolls her eyes. "'S'ere a way you demand I say hi?"

You kiss her on an apple cheek. "What's wrong with 'hi?'"

She kisses you back. "Wha's it ma'er you?"

"Sounds like you were worried about me, walking a whole ten blocks."

"Fuck me for carin'! Hope ya get jumped next time!"

"Who'd buy you dinner?"

"Could always jus' throw you out an' buy it m'self." She kisses you again as a tacit admission of joking. "When'a we gettin' it, though?"

I don't know," you say. You know.

"Could it be now?"

"I don't know," you say.

She clears her throat. "Could it be now?"

"Haven't you been eating all day?"

"Yeah, but tha' were just trash, so it ain't count," she laughs.

"Wait, did you start drinking without me?" you ask. It takes a few for her to drop grammar altogether.

"Yes-uh." She sighs, adding an exasperated breath at the end like a high school girl. "Ya fuckin' trip took a minute, was I s'posed to waste half m' night?"

You pull her over to the couch. She lies on her back across it, and you on top of her, gently stroking her belly.

"I don't feel like going out," you whisper in her ear. "I want to stay here and fuck you."

"Not before dinner!" she whines. "Either we get some'n out or you cook, cause fuck if I'm doin' it." The last part isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. Dumpster-diving is easier, but when she comes over your house, she can pull off normal food just fine.

"Whatever," you say with fake exasperation. "Where do you want to go?"

"How 'bout the brurp-" she doesn't break her stride "-carry-out down'a road some? 'S only one left roun'ere we ain't tried yet."

Your conversations usually don't fixate this much on food, but she hams it up for your benefit. She knows what it does to you, although it's hard to tell who enjoys it more.

She gets up, yawns, and stretches, unfolding her wings to show off her breathtaking ass. Her skirt is so short both the top and bottom are peeking out.

You poke a finger just a little into the exposed part of her crack. "You're not going out like this, are you?"

"Oh, am I not? Wha'cha gonna do abou' it? Now hurry up, I barely - BAURRP - eaten yet." The belch that punctuates the sentence is much bassier and more guttural than her voice. Even if her stomach has no problem with expired food, the sheer amount of it she eats never sits well. You've overcome the butterflies in your own enough to tell her you find it "cute," but you're not revealing any more than that. But from the nature of the site you met on, it could be inferred.

The several-block walk is your time to talk about normal stuff. City life, favorite shows, money problems, complaining about interspecies politics. Even between the hundreds of races, things never change.

You arrive at a little take-out joint made of concrete and corrugated tin. You'd never have rolled the dice on this place alone; you hadn't thought you could trust a harpy on what's edible either, but growing up with so many other species has taught her what weaker digestive systems can't handle. Thank fuck, because the slums have some of the best street food.

The faun behind the counter is delighted by the size of your order. He makes jovial small talk while it's being made, although his dialect is so thick she has to translate it for you. "Dun sigh' mengi ye kine dehyah." <"We don't see many of your type around here."> "Yins grok sae fetchlike, kijan meeten tha?" <"The two of you get along so well, how'd you meet?"> A rotund man himself, he doesn't seem to find anything off about how she's dressed or the contrast between you.

You leave with a grab bag of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and ones made of less categorizable meats - succulent and chewy smoked makara, juicy medium-rare obia; you even try the veggie burger, made from lamb of tartary - and no shortage of fries.

You both start dipping into the bag before you're even out the door. You got so many different ones that each one you pull out is a surprise.

You bite into one packed so full condiments drip out the other end: Farm-raised penghou with a slice of cheddar, topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, and a gooey fried bunyip egg on a butter-soaked bun.

The fries are cooked skin-on and sprinkled with a spice you can't put your finger on. Decadent enough on their own, but the addition of bacon, cheese, and ranch dressing crosses the line into vice.

The meat's all cooked on a wood grill, soaking it with smoky flavor and charring it just enough to give it some texture. Everything's slathered in addictive amounts of grease and salt. You don't normally eat like this, but when you're with her, you have to.

You stare at your burger in astonishment. "How have you never tried this place?"

"When I said 'we,' I meant 'the both of us toge'er.' Do I look like there's any fas' food I ain't familiar wiv?"

Next, you stop in at a liquor store for a case of cheap beer. You could afford to get better stuff, and any other time you would, but on nights like this, you drink to get drunk.

She kills two burgers and a can before you're even home, lets out an intentionally obnoxious belch, and cracks up.

"Disgusting!" screeches a banshee from a nearby stoop. She flips her off.

In hindsight, it was inaccurate to say she doesn't care what people think. She knows and revels in it, both the good and the bad. That's why you get along. Your attraction to her grosser qualities would've made other people - even other harpies - uncomfortable, but the two of you's kinks align perfectly.

You spend the rest of the night on her house's makeshift roof deck: some patio furniture tossed on an outdoor rug over the bare concrete. The two of you cuddle on a large wicker couch as you eat, drink, and watch the city winding down for the night. It's like being a teenager again. As arousing as it'd seemed on the internet, you never would've thought a junk food binge could be romantic.

It's distant but you can see the skyline from here, and its new tallest tower is lit up bottom to top with construction lights - the shiniest thing in the city. She keeps trailing off in the middle of sentences and turning back to stare at it.

You finish the last burger you were allotted, and while she's distracted, unwrap one of hers and take a bite. You've never tried this kind before: Ao Ao steak with grilled onions and a barbecue mayo that's just the right balance of creamy and tangy. It's orgastic. You consider ditching her and fucking this sandwich. But she smells it, whirls around, and snatches it from you. You play fight over it, both stealing bites from opposite ends at once.

She claws at you, crams the rest of it into her mouth, and swallows it unchewed like a pill. She leans in close as if to kiss you again, but instead, burps in your face. A solid one, wet and scented like the food she just stole, followed by a cackle that would sound mean in any other context. But then she does kiss you, deeply and passionately, and licks your face, tracing her tongue across your cheek. You can't stay mad at her. You never were.

The traffic noise and thumping music from the neighbors quiet down around two. A few distant pops put you on edge - definitely not fireworks - but her indifference calms you. Soon enough, it's silent.

The conversation turns towards the vulgar, as it always does when you drink together. Fantasies you've had, things you're into, other fascinating fetishes you've run across on the internet. Oral fixations are a recurring topic throughout. She talks about even the weirdest kinks with charming familiarity, and over the course of the next couple hours, more slurred and interrupted by more of the kind of eruptions you can only get from a whole day of gluttony.

Dinner ends with her lying on her back, stuffed and topless. You pet her with your right hand, running it through her thicket of hair and over her face. But you take her by surprise by poking in her bellybutton with your other index. She squeaks and grabs your hand. "Rub it ins'ead," she purrs.

You knead the vast expanse of fat, causing her to close her eyes and moan in indulgent bliss. After a few minutes, she grabs you and turns you over, faster than you thought she could move in that state, and her weight pins you under her. You submit, enjoying the pressure.

Her nipples are right in your face, and you obligingly suck them, squeezing and fondling her tits with both hands while doing one after the other. She quivers with delight. When you're done, she licks your neck, then plants a love bite. Her teeth dig in without breaking the skin, providing just a twinge of pain.

Their razor sharpness reminds you just how different she is than any humans you've been with. You don't know if it's right to think this, but maybe her fierceness comes from her animal half. No one else has been intense to the point of scaring you. You're on a rooftop because it's close to public as you're willing to get. She, you suspect, could fuck in a town square and tell everyone to take pictures. It's intimidating, but makes you feel more confident too.

She grabs your dick, then kneels down on the outdoor rug in front of the couch to put it in her mouth. You stop her. "Save it."

"Yes sir!" She gets off of you and lies on her back on the floor.

You join her, hiking up her skirt and yanking down her black panties. Her pussy lips are covered by a tuft of down you honestly prefer to scratchy human pubes. You reach in and find the slight protuberance of her clit. Her entire body tenses, then relaxes as you finger her until she comes for the first time.

For the second time, you eat her out. She grabs your hair and holds onto it, pulling you in closer. Her pillowy thighs envelop your head. You sink into her warmth, closing her eyes and licking until she climaxes again.

You emerge, and she turns over onto her front, presses her face into the cushions, and sticks her ass high in the air.

You lick every inch of its cheeks. You're not ready for rimming yet - maybe you'll get there someday - you just have to feel the contours of her flesh better than you can with your fingers.

"How do you feel?"

"Mmm... dirty."

"You've been bad tonight," you hiss into her ear before spanking her. Each strike lands with a satisfying "whap" and sends ripples through it. "Yes!" she shrieks. By the time you're done, tears are streaming down her face.

"Fuck me in the ass," she snarls through clenched teeth. "Now."

About time. Your dick is throbbing and soaked with enough precum that you can penetrate with just a little extra spit. She lets her wings droop to the floor and her tongue hang out of her mouth.

Her huge ass wobbles up and down as you thrust into her. You grab her belly and hold on with both hands, as it too moves in waves.

"Yes! Yes!" she cries out, her voice risen an octave.

A light in a nearby window comes on, then immediately goes off. You wonder if they liked what they saw. And if they didn't, that was just as good. She's infecting you.

Both your bodies are electrified as you come, the kind of orgasm that knocks the wind out of you.

"How do you feel?" you ask once you've caught your breath.

"Like one - ooorrp - trashy bitch," she says with a wicked grin.

Your creampie runs down her legs and soaks into the rug. In your moment of post-sex clarity, a thought occurs. "Don't other people use this?"

"I'll clean i' uh if I feel like it," she slurs, getting sleepy. "If 'ey don't wanna touch your cum, they cn' move the fuck out."

The following Wednesday, you spend your lunch break with her at a cafe near your work. Its white furniture, polished floors, and throw pillows on every flat surface couldn't be more different from your last meeting place. It's a food critic favorite, but she only has a green tea.

She wears a midi dress that hides the extent of her gut and squeezes her figure into a more conventional shape, one of the few store-bought pieces of clothing you've seen her in. She's toned down her makeup and left most of her necklaces at home: wearing stolen trinkets downtown gets you followed around by security at best. She keeps her wings politely folded behind her back. She says please and thank you, avoiding eye contact with the handful of other customers. You don't recognize this lady.

"I definitely want to do something different this weekend," she says. Her voice is soft, enunciated, only hints of an accent on long vowels. "Maybe catch a movie?"